If at first you don't suceed,break out the ductape
by twistedpalindrome
Summary: It's Lily Evans' last year at Hogwarts, and James Potter is STILL trying to win her heart. Will the arrogant prat ever give up? And what is this dark disturbance in the wizarding world? A story from Lily's point of view...
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys. This is actually the second story I've posted up here, but the first one kind of sucked. This one, however, I'm pretty sure is better. Please review, so I know. I hope you like it. **

**Oh, yeah. I didn't invent any of these characters, they belong to J.K. Rowling. Well, with the exception of Meg and Jen, that is, but that's only because I don't know what Lily's real friends' names are. In the story. Yeah. **

**Well, Enjoy. **

**Chapter One:**

"You pompous, idiot, arrogant, erm, BOOGIE FACE!" I cried, not being able to think of anything better due to frustration. James Potter, a fellow seventh year student -if... _that _can really be called a student- had recently dumped several melted chocolate frogs on my head.

"Oh I'm a boogie face, am I Evans? And what, exactly, is that?" he wanted to know.

I glared while he smirked. "Well, it's, erm, it's, it's, it's YOU, that's what!" As you can see, I have a way with words.

His smirk widened. "Why, may I ask, am I a 'boogie face'?'"

Well that's a stupid question. I almost wondered if I should even answer it. I mean, he DUMPED MELTED CHOCOLATE ON MY HEAD. I was fuming. And you would be too, if you'd been in my situation. While it smelled very nice, I can't say it was doing much for my hair.

"James Potter, you know perfectly well why you are a boogie face," I fumed, jabbing my finger in the direction of the top of my head.

He put on a genuinely surprised look. "You think _I _did that?" he demanded.

"Well, let's see. I was standing right here, I felt something GOOEY AND WARM drop on my HEAD, and then I turned around and you know who I saw? _You._"

"But I-b-but-I-I-" he stammered. I rolled my eyes. Why did he pick on me so much anyway? Or "flirt" as my best friends Meg and Jen say. But I doubt that. Since when does flirting involve melted chocolate being DUMPED ON YOUR HEAD?

I stormed out of the compartment, followed by said Meg and Jen, who had just walked in. They looked confused. He will just never give up. He does things like that, dumping things on me I mean, not stammering, and then he asks me out! Usually five times a day, at least!

"What on EARTH is the matter, Lily?" Meg demanded.

"Him! He's the matter! Him him him...!" I muttered. They looked more confused than ever.

"Him?" Meg asked.

"You mean The Man!" Jen asked excitedly. She got very excited about anything controversial or political.

"The Man?" Meg blinked. "I thought we were talking about Him."

"He must be the man if He is making Lils so mad!"

"But-"

"The man, the man! The man is bringing us down!"

"WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP!" I yelled. "I mean Potter! He dumped chocolate frogs ON MY HEAD!"

"Like, whoa. No need to pop a vein," Meg said. "Are you sure it was JAMES that dumped it on you? I thought he was, like, smitten by you."

"_The man, the man, the man..._"

I rolled my eyes. Smitten. Last time I checked, if you are smitten by someone, you don't go around pulling pranks on that person all the time. But then I haven't been smitten by many people, so maybe I wouldn't know.

"Whatever, guys. Apparently I need to go show the prefects what to do, now that I'm head girl. See you in a bit," I said, heading towards the prefects compartment. I flicked my wand, in the same fashion I had to get rid of the melted chocolate, and was changed into my robes.

I was almost there, too, when James Potter stepped in front of me. "Listen, Lily," he said, "about earlier, I-"

"Oh, put a sock in it, Potter. I don't want to think, much less talk, about it. My hair STILL smells like chocolate. And freshly cut cardboard, from the trading cards."

"But-" he said, he's voice sounding, almost, I don't know, pleading. I brushed past him, never once looking back, even when he said my name, which was about five billion times.

I stepped in the carriage and Professor McGonagall started to tell us our duties as head boys and girls. I smiled and waved at Remus Lupin, the only tolerable one of James's friends. He could even be quite pleasant, when he wasn't sitting around lazily not doing anything about James and Sirius's pranks.

"You must give the prefects these scrolls. The will tell them what the password for their dorms are, and-"

I saw Luscious Malfoy out of the corner of my eye, sneering as usual. It was like this mean look was plastered perpetually on his face. He noticed that I noticed him and mouthed, "Mudblood," and his house's head girl, Narcissa, giggled.

"-and you will have your own rooms, as you are our top students- Or perhaps I am mistaken. Is there something you would like to share, Narcissa?"

Her impossibly pale skin turned the softest shade of maroon I have ever seen. "Nothing, Professor McGonagall. Sorry."

"Alright then. As I was saying-"

I looked around at the others. We were all near the top of our class as far as our grades went. James and Sirius and several others might have been considered for head of their house, if they hadn't been such trouble makers.

"Now, I want you to be kind to the prefects, as they don't know what they're doing, for the most part. Here you go," Prof. McGonagall said, passing out the scrolls.

Remus and I headed over to our prefects, handing them the scrolls. I beamed and tried to talk soothingly, so that they would not be nervous. It seemed to work, for the most part, since they didn't cower. Pocketing my own scroll, I waved at Remus and returned to the compartment that Meg and Jen were in.

"So, like, how'd it go?" Meg said, perkily as usual. She was 5'10'', blonde, blue eyed, and pretty much model-worthy everywhere else as well. But despite her occasional dizziness, she made decent grades, and was very fun to be around.

"It went well," I said, honestly, since it had. Well except for the whole Malfoy thing.

"I saw The Man, a.k.a. Lover Boy, corner you on your way there. What'd he say?" Jen demanded, a dark and perfectly plucked eyebrow raised. Her hair was dark too, and fell just above her shoulders. She had big, chocolate colored eyes that went along with her big hands and feet that managed, somehow, to look nice with her very short body. Even though she was way concerned with what was going on with the world, and would probably end up being very high in the Ministry, she didn't hesitate to be fashionable. Actually, Lily was the only one out of the three that didn't focus much on her looks.

I snorted. "Lover Boy? Yeah, right. I don't know what he wanted, I didn't talk to him."

"Oh," Jen said, sounding disappointed.

"Look," I said, turning to the window and barely able to contain my excitement. "We're here!" Meg and Jen snapped up and looked out the window, beaming. It's funny, because most muggle children hate going to school. But I don't think there is a single person that doesn't like going to Hogwarts. I felt sort of sorry for my sister, Petunia, but not really, because she wasn't exactly the kindest person in the world. Actually I think she would have rather liked Malfoy.

We all hobbled out of the train, into the amazingly clear night. I was admiring the fact that I could see a great deal of stars, but not a single cloud, when I felt someone tap my shoulder. I turned around to expect Meg or Jen, and to my horror seeing none other than Malfoy himself.

"Well, if it isn't the little Mudblood," he said, saying "mudblood" as if it were so horrible it deserved a capital M. "I believe you owe Narcissa here an apology."

I snorted. "An apology for what, may I ask?"

He smirked, except it was an entirely different smirk than James's. It was mischievous… it was almost...evil. "Well, it's your fault McGonagall used harsh tones with her on the train."

"How was that _my _fault-"

"Oh yes, and for being a Mudblood. For that you should practically be kissing her feet."

"You're right. Narcissa, I'm sorry you're such a prat." I turned and started to walk away when I heard Malfoy begin to mutter an incantation behind me. "_CRU_-"

"_PROTEGO!" _someone cried, although it certainly wasn't me. I was too surprised. I knew Malfoy was a prat, but I didn't know he was a dangerous prat. I spun around to the origin of the voice, and to my surprise saw James.

"James?" I said, blinking, real intelligent like.

His usual smirk was replaced by concern, much to my surprise. "Are you okay? If he layed a finger on you I'll-"

"Whoa, Potter, settle down. I'm fine. And I could have handled it myself, thank you very much," I said, glaring, then thought better of it. That was a stupid thing to say. He helped me whether or not I wanted to admit it. "I mean, thanks, Potter..." I muttered.

I now saw James's smirk had found it's way back, and along with his eyebrows now being raised, he looked normal. Well, for him anyway. "Evans? Did you just thank ME for something?"

"Yeah, well, whatever. Just hurry along to the feast."

"Well," he said, continuing the subject of his saving my skin. "This is certainly a step ahead. I don't suppose you'd want to go out with me-"

That was it. It was hard enough saying thank you, after all he's done to me. And I'm not proud of what I did next, but I couldn't help it. It was just too much.

"DON'T YOU GET IT, POTTER?" I practically screamed. "All you've ever done, apart from now, is SPITE ME! And on purpose!" There was practically steam coming out of my ears. "FOR THE LAST, FINAL, STINKING TIME! I DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO _NOT, _NOW OR EVER WANT TO GO OUT WITH **_YOU_**! WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?"

I stormed off, trying not to notice that it was completely silent, and every pair of eyes was on me.

"Because," James said, answering my question, though I didn't hear him, and didn't ever know he'd said until much later, "I love you."


	2. Chapter 2

**Yeah, I figured out that there is only one head person per house, (thank you Siri's gurl, for the comment . I missed that part, unfortunately), but whatever. For the rest of you, this is my story. Deal with it. Fwahahahaha...**

**Anway, once again I don't own any of the characters, and if I get anything Harry Potter related wrong, it will most likely be somewhat of a small detail, since I've read all the books 5 times, except for _The Half Blood Prince, _which, incidentally, I finished the day it came out. Fwahha...**

**So, let's just pretend that there are supposed to be two heads of houses, one boy and one girl, and that they are Lily and Remus, because James is too much of an idiot to be head of house. Now that we have that settled, the story shall commence:**

**Chapter Two:**

Even by the time I entered the great hall, I was still fuming. Actually I wanted to kick something really, really bad. You see the thing with us redheads is, we tend to get mad a lot. "Hothead redheads." And it's not even that we get mad anymore than other people, it's just that it shows. With the red hair, and red tinted skin. When one of us gets mad, or is embarrassed, it is impossible _not _to turn bright red. And then everyone _knows _we are mad or embarrassed, which usually ends up making us even more mad or embarrassed. I, believe me, am no exception.

This is probably why, when I sat down by Meg and Jen, Meg said, "Lily. Like, what's the matter? You look like someone poured ketchup all over you."

Meg seems to think this is amusing, but I'll never know why. "Because," I forced out, "James Potter is an insufferable, inconsiderate, idiot."

"Nice alliteration," Jen commented.

"Why's he an idiot?" Meg wanted to know, as if it wasn't obvious.

"He won't leave me alone! Doesn't he understand that I don't want to go out with him? It's like he's a stalker or something!"

"Ah, but it isn't stalking, friend," Jen said, "it's love."

"Psh."

"Yeah," Meg added, "Yeah. Luuuurrve."

"You two are no help whatsoever."

And of course, they grinned. I think that they enjoy seeing me as red as the Gryffindor robes. But anyway, the sorting hat sang his song, and the new first years were sorted as usual. However, he kept going on about unity between the houses, and how we shouldn't separate ourselves, which is ironic since he is the one who does the separating. Whatever. This brought several comments from the area of the Mauders.

"Unity my foot. Like we'd ever unite with _them_," Sirius scoffed, jabbing his thumb towards the Slytherin table. He looked at James expectantly, but surprisingly all he got was a nod. He, James I mean, looked sort of... almost... well, crestfallen. I'd never seen this look before. Arrogant, certainly. But crestfallen? Not so much. It made me feel sort of bad for yelling at him. Sort of.

The prefects led the first years' way to the dorms, Meg, Jen, and I following close behind. They wanted to get the best spots in the dorm. The ones with lots of wall space to hang up pictures. I got my own room, but whatever. I decided to help them anyway.

In a nutshell, they go they're beds, I put my junk in my new room, and everyone started filing away to go to sleep after much celebrating the new school year. I, however, stayed in the common room for a while, watching the fire. It's my favorite time of the day, late at night. That time of the day that's too late for people to still be up, and too early for anyone to have woken up yet. Around 4:00 o'clock, which it was about to be, due to the large amount of partying. It's sort of peaceful, knowing that pretty much everyone within a fifty mile radius is asleep.

I was about to drift off to sleep in the armchair, when I heard a noise coming from the top of the stairs leading to the boys' dorm. "Great," I was thinking. It was probably James and Sirius, creating their latest start-of-term prank. Last year they had completely filled the school with un-popable bubbles. What would they do THIS year? It was their last year to do something, I'm guessing it would be a doozy.

But then I heard, from the same spot, an exclamation of pain, and then saw a large round object tumble down said stairs. I rushed over to see if the object was all right, to find Peter Pettigrew. Remus is the only tolerable Mauder, but I think Peter might have turned out tolerable as well, if he didn't hang out with James and Sirius. He seems to idolize them, and yet, not really _them_, but more, their popularity. He was like a leech or something.

"Peter?" I half asked, half stated, but leaning towards the statement seeing as how him being the lump that had fallen down the stairs wasn't all that much of a surprise.

He got up and spoke, but wouldn't look me directly in the eye. "Oh, erm, I'm just looking for me rat, Lily. Sorry to bother you."

I sighed. I would feel sorry for him if he wasn't such a parasite. I would be surprised that James and Sirius didn't see that he only seemed to like them because they were popular, but frankly, I think they enjoyed the fact that he fawned over them.

"Accio rat," he said, flicking his wand the wrong way. I suppose it worked somewhat though, since I heard a distinct squeak coming from one of the corners.

"_Accio _rat," I thought, flicking my wand, practicing using spells by thoughts alone. His rat sped towards me, and I handed it to him.

"Thanks," he squeaked, apparently a bit loudly, since I saw James and Sirius's head peak down to where Peter and I were standing.

"Go to bed, you three," I said, trying to sound authorative.

Sirius rolled his eyes. "We thought nobody would be up! It's four o'clock in the morning! We were going to- Um. ...give ourselves facials," he said, smirking.

Now, I rolled my eyes. "I don't know what you two are up to, but you should stop now. It's late, you shouldn't be up."

"Oh," Sirius retorted, "and why, may I ask, are _you _up?"

He had me there. Because I felt like it? What kind of a response was that, even if it was the truth. "Because, erm, I was helping Peter here retrieve his rat."

"But," Peter said dumbly, "you were here when I came down."

I wanted to smack him. "More like _rolled _down," I muttered instead.

Sirius grinned, knowing he had me. "You! Lily Evans! Down here in the wee hours of the morning! You're supposed to be an example to us!"

I gave him my most dangerous looking glare. "Go. To. Bed. Sirius."

He laughed. But we aren't done putting together the- I mean, giving ourselves facials."

"Another prank? What are you going to do this time, blow up the toilets!"

"Good idea-"

"YOU ARE SO-"

But Sirius never got to find out what he was, because James interrupted. "Maybe Lily's right, Padfoot. We've had so many pranks in the past years, instead of having a big surprise one, we could not do one. That would be even more of a surprise. The teachers would start getting all twitchy, that'd be pretty funny, eh?"

Sirius raised his eyebrows. "What?" he wanted to know. "Are you turning into a goody two shoes? Jimmy? Come now!" he punched James playfully in the shoulder. "Whew! You had me going there for a minute..."

James' face remained expressionless.

"You...you can't be... serious..."

"Actually, you're Sirius," Peter pointed out. This was obviously not the time for that, though, based on Sirius newfound mood.

"It's because of HER isn't it?" he said, jabbing his finger in my direction. "Doing what _Lilyflower _wants, then? So a GIRL is going to ruin our perfect streak of ingenious pranks?"

"I-" James pleaded.

"Well, FINE! I'll do one without you! WORMTAIL!" he bellowed. Peter flinched. "YOU! You will help me with this year's prank! Come!" he said, and went swooshing up to the dorm, Peter following, blindly as usual.

James stood there blinking at the spot Sirius and Peter had disappeared to. I stood there blinking at him. He'd given up his treasured prank for _me? _Me? Lily Evans? And now his best friend was mad at him...

For me?

I laughed to myself. Maybe he did it for me, but the thing is, I don't even think he really likes me. The only reason he's after me is because I'm the only girl in the school who doesn't swoon at the sight of him. As soon as he had me, in the unlikely event that I would have ever let that happen, he would have dumped me, happy that he knew he could do it.

I turned around and headed to my room. "Lily-" he called after me, but I didn't look back. Not until he couldn't tell that I was looking back anymore, that is.

I took hold of my doorknob and then decided to peak back into the common room. Much to my surprise, he was slumped in an armchair, with his head in his hands. "Is it possible?" I was thinking. Is it possible that he really had just gotten into a fight with his best friend because he wanted _me _to like him? I wasn't the prettiest or most popular girl in our class. If he wanted pretty and popular, he could have gone to Meg. Is it possible that he really likes _me_?

Either way, I opened my door and plopped onto my bed. Suddenly I was completely exhausted...


End file.
